My Story

I’ve been contemplating for awhile if/when I would share my story and how I got into pelvic floor therapy. I’ve always been hesitant (and truthfully, still working through the emotions associated with my story). Recently I had a client come for an evaluation with some similar symptoms and listening to her journey, made me realize that maybe sharing my story could help someone not feel so alone. So here it goes....

Being the youngest in my family and how we were raised, we never talked about the pelvic floor, pelvic health, periods, all the things regarding “down there” directly in our house (which, being from a family of 5 girls, you’d think we would have). My parents never gave the “birds and the bees” talk. When I got my first period, my mom suuuuper briefly talked about wearing a pad and how often to change it and then quickly changed the subject.

In this environment, it made me feel embarrassed to ask more questions. Embarrassed and ashamed that everyone (friends and my sisters) seemed to know so much more. Looking back, it’s obvious... how would I understand something that was never talked about??

Growing up, I always had a really hard time using tampons. I would try and try and try and never was able to insert a tampon fully. I was the person who actually sat and read the instructions that come in the box of tampons with words and diagrams and still couldn’t figure out how women wore these comfortably. What was wrong with me? How could I not follow fairly simple instructions? It was the worse. Again, too ashamed and embarrassed to speak up, I just tried my best to ignore the problem.

Fast forward to the year after I graduated from PT school. Now, I was a full fledged adult and still didn’t know much about my body. Far too late in life (in my opinion, you do you), I finally went to a gynecologist for the first time ever. I heard rumbles from women how uncomfortable these appointments were and since I wasn’t sexually active yet, didn’t feel like I had any urgency to submit myself to this discomfort.

The doc that I saw was straight to the point, a no-fluffs, sort of personality. She attempted to insert a speculum for her internal exam and couldn’t. She then pulled out the pediatric size (meant for kids) and tried again. Still couldn’t insert it. She then tried to insert a q-tip and it STILL didn’t insert all the way.

Already feeling embarrassed, ashamed, and terrified (to be honest) she asked about tampon use for the 1st time in the appointment. I explained that I could never fully insert one and they were super uncomfortable. Her response “I can see why”. How she explained it, my hymen was very thick. The average hymen, she explained, is usually a thin, elastic tissue that is about the thickness of slightly more than a finger nail, mine she estimated was as thick the distance from the end of her pinky to the last knuckle. Her recommendation... to have a minor procedure under anesthesia to remove my hymen known as a hymenectomy .

Here is where I really started for a tail spin. I finally talked myself into going to the “lady doc” and now I have to have a procedure to remove my hymen?! Woah, I must really be broken was my immediate thought. Since this was her recommendation and she was the professional, I listened and I was scheduled for the procedure about 2 weeks later.

The procedure itself was super easy when I look at the nitty gritty of it. I walked into the operating room, told the anesthesiologist I was scared of the IV and asked him to insert it at the last possible moment. He obliged and I briefly remember him telling me he was going to put the IV in and then count backward from 10.

I remember waking up in the PACU afterwards with my nurse talking to someone nearby. I could still feel the IV in my arm (for some reason, I was hyper aware of this) and remember saying “I’m awake but can you remove the IV before I open my eyes?” She so graciously did and after that everything was pretty quick from getting dressed, getting meds, and then discharged.

My doctor prescribed me heavy duty Ibuprofen and some oxycodone...woah...if she is prescribing me oxy, how much pain am I going to be in? Luckily once I was home, I slept on and off for what felt the next 48 hours and never really had much pain. Slight discomfort from the internal stitches but otherwise, I was pretty good. My now husband and friends were great caregivers. (The oxy quickly made it’s way to the local police department give back program).

Two weeks later, I followed up with my doc for my post-op check up. She said everything looked good but my pelvic floor muscles were “super tight”. Again, her explanation was that due to the thick hymen pulling the tissues tight, this likely caused the pelvic floor muscles to be pulled into a tense position for my entire life. She strongly recommended pelvic floor therapy at the time... I asked her for an alternative option. I was quickly told there wasn’t another option besides just living with the tight muscles and pain.

I am grateful to that doc every day because if she wouldn’t have sent my referral to a clinic who reached out to schedule an eval, I don’t think I would have ever followed up. I saw a pelvic floor therapist for 6 sessions and felt like I made pretty good progress. Even though I was a licensed PT by this time, I knew nothing about pelvic floor therapy and wasn’t sure how much progress to expect.

When I graduated from pelvic floor therapy, I would say I was managing my symptoms fairly well. My therapist did a lot of internal release of the tissues and helped get me set up with dilators to work on stretching my muscles myself at home. I wasn’t 100% but I was pretty satisfied.

From my experience as a patient, it helped me realize how much impact pelvic floor therapy had on my quality of life. I could finally use tampons and have intercourse with minimal discomfort.

It took me another 2 years to finally take the leap to start taking continuing education courses to learn how to help others and I haven’t looked back since.

My interests in learning about pelvic floor therapy has lead me to Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) exercises. I can say fully, without a doubt, that once I started incorporating PRI based exercises, my symptoms were no longer just being managed but they were resolving. It’s been great! Just like many people, I occasionally have flare ups when I am super stressed or if I do high reps of certain exercises but I now have the knowledge and tools to see these flare ups coming and can mitigate them quickly.

I still have lingering emotions I’ve been working on processing through with a fantastic mental health therapist surrounding that time of my life. I rarely talk about this procedure and some people near and dear to me may just be finding out that this even happened when they read this blog post. Experiencing this all first hand has given me a whole appreciation for the emotions that can be connected to pelvic floor issues. If there is only one thing I can provide to people is that you are not alone.

If you have read this far, thank you for taking the time to understand my story.

If you found this post helpful, please comment and share with others as I love educating the community!

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